Things were relatively quiet in the NASCAR world from a drama standpoint from mid-September's Carson Hocevar-Ryan Blaney fight at Bristol Motor Speedway up until this past weekend's race at Phoenix Raceway, simply because Hocevar seems to be the only name capable of generating attention that has nothing to do with race results these days.
After Sunday's race, Zane Smith, one of a number of drivers who has publicly admitted he does not like Hocevar, slammed into the back of Hocevar's car before returning to the pits, after telling his crew on the radio that he did not care that Hocevar wasn't actually the reason for the contact between the two earlier in the race.
NASCAR fined Smith $50,000, but it notably happened one week after another post-race act of retaliation went unpunished. Michael McDowell hooked Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the right rear on the cooldown lap at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and he was not fined, suspended, or docked points.
Does NASCAR have a Carson Hocevar double standard?
I think two things can be true. Given how they've milked the publicity that Hocevar generates with his aggression and other on-track (and off-track) antics, even though his win percentage remains lower than Harrison Burton's, it makes sense that they want to "protect" him, shall we say.
I still don't buy him being NASCAR's most popular driver (he's not), and the ratings certainly don't reflect the "he's saving NASCAR!" narrative that everyone with No. 77 flair on Reddit wants you to believe, but there's no arguing against the fact that he has been a net positive for the sport and its fanbase as a whole. They say any publicity is good publicity.
But I don't think this was a case where NASCAR was simply not following an established precedent.
This isn't the first time Smith has retaliated against Hocevar, and NASCAR had spoken to him about it before without penalty; he wasn't penalized after the Chicagoland Speedway race in July. Now he did it again, he was penalized, and the radio transmission was basically asking for a fine.
That would have been the case whether it was Hocevar or anybody else, and it's a perfectly defensible decision.
McDowell and Stenhouse were able to sort their differences and spoke to NASCAR about the issue. While there is still a very real argument that McDowell should have been penalized for the move in and of itself, I don't think NASCAR would let it slide if anything were to happen again.
The thing about NASCAR and precedents and their alleged consistent inconsistency is the fact that no two incidents will ever be alike.
If NASCAR were to follow a "precedent" and respond the same way to two different incidents, the same fans who complain about inconsistency would find other reasons to complain that it was really apples to oranges anyway and therefore NASCAR should have arrived at a different conclusion.
It's a no-win situation.
I agree that it can be frustrating for fans when different drivers seem to be held to different standards, but I don't think that's really what it is beneath the surface. And I don't envy NASCAR making the decisions that fans seem to think should be slam-dunk decisions when it comes to what to penalize and what to let slide. It's not always as easy as "sticking to the precedent".
When you bring subjectivity into the equation, which is inevitable whether fans like it or not, you are going to reach different conclusions.
Was McDowell spinning Stenhouse really any less dangerous than Smith hitting Hocevar, just because Smith was traveling faster? Was either one really any less dangerous than the other for the other drivers who happened to be around them at the time?
Was either incident really different, in that they were both unnecessary post-race acts of retaliation in which the car was effectively used as a weapon, something which has historically been frowned upon?
Would Smith have been penalized had the incident happened during the race? Ryan Preece was fined and penalized in the standings for intentionally wrecking Ty Gibbs, and they didn't really even have much of a history.
Would Smith have been penalized had he attacked Hocevar physically in the pits like Blaney did?
While NASCAR may want to protect Hocevar, given how many drivers now have beef with him that could very well spill over into future retaliation, let's not forget that Blaney wasn't penalized for the scuffle on pit road at Bristol either. That said, they also didn't have a history until the incident on the race track that led to the brawl.
It'd be easy to look at what happened at Phoenix and say it's a NASCAR double standard and Hocevar is the new "golden boy" after McDowell escaped punishment at Charlotte. But it's not that simple, and it never is.
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